Research guide

OneSearch (EBSCO Discovery Service)

Through our OneSearch discovery service you will find both printed and online content. This is our main indexing service and most of our resources are collected here. OneSearch has many search features that you should take the time to familiarise yourself with, for example:

• Advanced searching with boolean operators - See our boolean searching guide for how to advice.

• Filters and limiters - refine your results by item type, publication year or source.

• Bookmarks, share items, and save searches to re-execute to organise into research projects.

• Exportation of citations and bibliographies to popular reference management systems (e.g., Refworks, EndNote, Mendelay).

Library catalogue

In our catalogue you will find all of our physical collection kept onsite at our Malmö campus, i.e., our print materials. This is the place to search if you know you want to borrow a physical book (as opposed to an ebook) or an issue from one of our journals available in print. Keep in mind; the catalogue does not search individual journal articles and book chapters, only book and journal titles. Items can be checked out to registered users and any loans, including dates due, can be viewed by logging into your WMU catalogue account.

Catalogue accounts are only created for students studying at the Malmö campus, however WMU students visiting from other locations may also request an account for the duration of their visit. We do not loan, or send whole physical books to students off campus. Offsite students can request an ILL from the library for articles and chapters, this must be done via your local library.

Database list

In our list of databases you can find the specialist databases that the library subscribes to that may or may not be indexed in OneSearch. While OneSearch attempts to aggregate the content from numerous databases into a single search, there will likely be times when you would benefit from searching a narrower range of content. The list summarizes the focus of each database, allowing you to select only those that are more topically relevant to your research.

Take a look at our database guide for how to access our most frequently queried databases.

TitleSearch

TitleSearch contains all electronic publications available in OneSearch but only searches the titles of ebooks and ejournals while OneSearch searches all metadata as well as the full-text, similar to the library catalogue for print searching. When searching for an ejournal title you can see at a glance the range of dates and issues available. This is a good resource when you have a title or citation in hand and are not interested in browsing through pages of results from a topical search in OneSearch.

Finding items from reference and reading lists

If you want to find material from a reference or reading list you need to make sure you know the item type. A book will be cited like this:

● Stopford, M. (2009). Maritime Economics, 3rd Edition, Taylor & Francis.

And an article like this:

● Sherman, K. (2014). Adaptive Management Institutions at the Regional Level: The Case of Large Marine Ecosystems. Ocean & Coastal Management (90), 38-49.

The key information to look for is the italic text, in APA and many other reference styles this will tell you the title of the book or journal.  When searching for specific titles it is often better to search with our TitleSearch as results will be narrowed down to specific full bodies of work with matching titles. To search for these example materials, type in the book title "Maritime Economics" or the journal title, "Ocean and Coastal Management", in TitleSearch. 

The punctuation and added details in citations, such as publication year and page numbers, can often confuse a search system. We recommend that you avoid copy and pasting the full citation into search systems.

Finding your own new and supplementary material

While studying at WMU you will often be required to find your own reference material to widen your knowledge and support your arguments. We call this keyword searching and it is akin to how you would use a search engine such as Google or Bing. For keyword searching use our OneSearch service, you can type in any topic/s that interests you and see what you find. You might find the results of keyword searching to be unfocused and overwhelming at first, so we've gathered a few tips and tricks on how to refine searching below.

Remember to keep an eye out on our events page for scheduling of our "How to Search" class for further help.

The search process

By using and repeating this five-point strategy for your searches you will increase the accuracy of your results. 

You should always start by defining the key concepts and terms relevant to you. If you already have a research question or topic consisting of one or more full sentences, pick out the most relevant words and phrases from these. 

Secondly, decide where to search. We recommend you start in an aggregated database such as OneSearch (full texts) or Scopus (abstract database). If you have a very specialized subject you may choose to instead use a specific database or source.

When you have these two ideas it is time to start searching. You will search strings by tying your chosen terms and concepts together using boolean operators (Boolean searching guide) and execute these strings in your chosen database. 

Evaluate! Are you getting the results you want? If not, change your search string, replace or remove words and concepts, or expand or narrow your database options. Repeat the steps as needed.

Some other things to consider when updating your searches:

• Synonyms - are there other words to describe what you need more precisely?
• Acronyms - avoid using acronyms, unless as part of a larger term, in aggregated databases, some same acronyms are commonly used across various fields.
• Spelling - be wary of spelling mistakes and alternate spellings.

Search results

After following the above advice you may still find yourself with too many or too few results to make a meaningful study. Here are some tips to focus the results.

Too many:

• Use filters - Most databases have extra filters to help you narrow your results, such as, publication year (do you want the latest research or historical?), document type (do you have the time for an in-depth book or do you need concise articles?).

• Use more precise language - e.g. "Fatigue on ships" Is that crew fatigue or metal fatigue?

• Use the Boolean search operator "AND" to make sure all your search terms are in each article. 

Too few:

• Use the Boolean search operator "OR" to include your synonyms or similar subject headings to broaden your results.

• Use the Boolean search operator "*" to truncate your terms - your term "Fisheries" may exclude results with the singular "Fishery". Use Fisher* to make sure your search includes both.

Follow the Boolean searching guide to master your searching.

When not otherwise specified by the user, a search term with multiple words will by default AND those words together. Any item in the results must include "Christopher" AND "Hill." The boolean operator AND will always be a narrowing influence because ALL words in the term must appear in the document. Of course, when you are searching full-text databases and/or documents with millions of items, a simple AND search might not seem to be limiting your results, but if you were to search for "Christopher" without adding the word "Hill", or vice-versa, your search results would almost certainly be greater than when using both terms.

Adding OR will increase the "comprehensiveness" of the results over using any single term. The document either contains the word "Christopher" OR it contains the word "Hill" (or both). If you find that your search is too narrow, you can expand it by using OR. For example, a search for:

      Author="Christopher Hill" AND Title=("Law" OR "Ships")

would pull up Christopher's book on Maritime Law and his book on Arrest of Ships. Note the parenthesis around the OR phrase. When the advanced search of a database allows you to specify different fields in which to place your terms, you would likely not need parentheses. If, however, you were searching in a single box, your results could be very different without parentheses.

      Author="Christopher Hill" AND Title="Law" or "Ships"

Would retrieve anything by Christopher Hill with the word Law in the title, but it might also retrieve anything with the word Ships in the title, whether or not it was authored by Christopher Hill. The parentheses ensures the logical groupings.

Not might not alter your search results, but when it does it will limit them. If for example, you searched:

       Author=Christopher Hill NOT Publisher=World Maritime University

The results would be the same, because there are no works authored by Christopher Hill and Published by WMU. On the other hand:

       Subject = Piracy NOT Copyright

Would likely limit your search results in an appreciable and relevant way.

Combinations

Many of the databases the library offers have hundreds of thousands of records and it is as much an art as it is a science to try to sift through them to limit your results only to pertinent items without missing anything of relevance.

 It is usually tradeoff between precision and comprehensiveness. This is where putting the limiting and including techniques together in combination can be very useful, particularly with the discovery service, where the possible items retrieved can be in the tens of millions.

Although the example below shows what is going on "under the hood," (and can still be done by experienced users in databases offering "command line" searching), fortunately, most web-based interfaces will offer appropriate text fields and pull down menus to achieve the same results.

Advanced searching

Field delimiting

One technique for narrowing your search is to limit your terms to a single field. Many databases have an option to limit your terms to Author, Title or Subject fields, meaning they would not be searched across the document, but only the fields you specify.

Often a database will have an Advanced search option that lets you put different terms in different fields so that you can limit your search, for instance to Author=Christopher Hill and Title=Arrest of ships.

Phrase searching

Phrase searching refers to searching for words in exact order as a single string, rather than searching for each word separately. In most databases, a phrase is designated by quotation marks as in:

       "United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea"

This exact phrase must appear in the document in order for it to be returned in our search results. Phrase searching is an important tactic when you need to limit your results.

Truncation

Many databases allow you to provide a character to represent one or more characters following your term, in order to catch variations of the word and plurals. In most databases (but not all), it is represented by an askerisk symbol (*). For instance:

        Seafar*

Would retrieve documents containing the word seafarer, seafarers, seafaring. 

Wildcard

A wildcard is a substitution of a single character (or no character) and can be used to catch variations in spelling.

        Labo*r

Would retrieve documents with the word "Labor" or "Labour." Wildcard symbols might not be available in some databases, and the choice of characters can vary according to the database, so be sure to look this up in the help. Truncation and wild cards are fairly surgical means of expanding your search results.

Google Forms will fill most basic survey and questionnaire needs. It is free to use and easy to learn with many guides to help you learn.

Keep an eye on the library events page for classes on formatting questionnaires.

Advanced surveys

If you find you need more adavanced features there are a number of different products available. One popular service is QuestionPro with both a free and a paid service, features may vary. You can sign up for a free account or inquire at library@wmu.se to learn more. 

The WMU Library does not provide any transcription software to its users. However there are many online tools out there, here are some that our students have used in the past: 

oTranscribe

Express Scribe

Otter (offers a free trial)

GoogleDocs also offers voice typing and the ability to record audio in text format. In a GoogleDoc, click on tools and then voice typing to try it out. 

Coursework submitted at WMU is automatically checked for similarity and plagiarism with a third-party software. The Library does not have access to any similarity-checking software for use before submission. If you would like to run your essays through a checker, there are many available online however the library does not recommend any particular software and cannot guarantee the accuracy of any.  

Below are some brief examples of the most commonly asked citation questions, for more in-depth information on how to use APA as a style guide we recommend you use the APA official website or check out one of the library's printed copies of the Publication manual of the American Psychological Association. 

Keep an eye out for referencing classes on the library events page

Key points:

• APA does NOT require you to include the date of access/retrieval date or database information for electronic sources.

• You can use the URL of the journal homepage if there is no DOI assigned and the reference was retrieved online.

• A DOI (digital object identifier) is an assigned number that helps link content to its location on the Internet. It is therefore important, if one is provided, to use it when creating a citation. A DOI replaces a URL link in referencing if both are available. All DOI numbers begin with a 10 and are separated by a slash.

Adding citations to your reference list 

The university gives access to RefWorks to all its employees and students. RefWorks is a reference management service that will help you manage your citations for projects and essays.

You must critically analyse each source to find out its value. This is an important part of thinking academically, we provide some steps below to think about whilst doing your research. 

Purpose

• Is there bias? Check the source of the information. Is a specific group's ideas promoted? 
• Consider the point-of-view. Are different points-of-view, theories or techniques presented?
• Think about who the information was written for (experts, public, etc.). Is that appropriate for your needs? 

Relevance

• Think about the types of sources that you require to complete the assignment. Do you need specific kinds of sources (articles, cases, primary sources, etc)?
• Find background information to get an overview of your topic, define concepts or collect facts.

Currency

• Consider the type of information you require. How rapidly is research changing in your topic area? 
• Do a search on you topic and limit by publication date. 

Authority

• Think about the author's credentials/reputation. Do they have expertise in the subject? How was this work received by others?
• Who created the website? If that information is difficult to find, try a WHOIS Search.

Accuracy

• Is the information verifiable by other sources?
• Do other sources come to the same conclusion(s)? Are the claims backed up?
• Has the work been reviewed before publication?

 ILL and purchase requests

You may always request that the library purchase material on your behalf as a student or staff member. All requests will by analysed on a case-by-case basis and might be fulfilled by an interlibrary loan.

• Request material here